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CBC
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
A guide to some of the N.B. artists taking the Area 506 stage
New Long-weekend festival an annual celebration of province's music and culture Organizers have stacked the musical lineup for the Area 506 festival's 10th anniversary edition, taking place on the Saint John waterfront from Aug. 1 to Aug. 3. Alexisonfire, Arkells, Cancer Bats and Classified are among the performers at the festival. Sharing the stage with those names are New Brunswick artists, including Wolf Castle, Poets and Liars, the Last Call, Ura Star & Fireball Kid, the Merci-Buckets, and the Kingston Collective. CBC News talked to some of the New Brunswick acts booked for the long-weekend festival that describes itself as featuring the best of the province's music, culture and goods. Wolf Castle Wolf Castle is the stage name of Mi'kmaw rapper Tristan Grant, who founded Atlantic Canada's only Indigenous music label, Castle Records, in May. The first to sign on were the Hello Crows, made up of four members from different First Nation communities in New Brunswick who use their music to "share their culture and be inviting," Grant said. Grant is a former host of Reclaimed, CBC's contemporary Indigenous music show. He credits his family for his interest in music and has made songs with both his mother and uncle, who also perform. Before hip-hop, Grant made remixes of techno and dance. He started to create his own songs as a teenager and has focused on hip-hop since 15. The artist said he recorded his biggest hit, Whoop!,"in the closet of my bedroom when I was still living at my mom's house." Grant said he loves the Saint John music scene and is "super pumped" to be performing at Area 506 this year. Poets and Liars Kendra Gale, Kortni Nicols and Warren Beatteay make up Poets and Liars, a "monster rock trio," in their words. The term originated as a joke because of the energy drinks Nicols conumes, Gale said. "I didn't really ever feel like I was good at things growing up," Nicols said. But singing in the car as a child, she was told she was a great singer, so she decided to pursue music more seriously. Beatteay fell in love with music because his dad was a singer. He started making his own music at 13 or 14. Gale credits her guitar-playing sister for her interest in music. "She's 12 years older than me, so music was always kind of around and she would teach some of our friends guitar in the kitchen and make me hit pots and pans or this little drum kit and noticed I had rhythm," Gale said. "She'd be like 'Hit this and then that,' and I'd be playing along with them." She's excited about the size of the Area 506 festival. "It'll be great to play with a lot of the big names around and on the stage size that we don't usually get to play on." The Last Call Saint John band The Last Call has been together since 2022 but is shifting from playing covers to creating its own music and just released two singles, Wine Bottles and Trainspotting. The band's first album will be released. The camaraderie within the rock band and the members' shared passion for creating and performing were obvious during an interview as they spoke and nodded and agreed with each other. Will Maber said that what he loves most about "being a singer and a frontman" is the opportunity to meet people and share something with them. Image | Living room mirror Caption: Polaroid photos from memorable concerts along a fireplace mantle in the uptown apartment that members of the band live in. (Luke Beirne/CBC) Open image in new tab For Zach Titus, it's "the excitement of every next step." "The first thing was playing a big show and having people actually care about the music and getting some fans, and the next step after that was actually writing music and recording it. Every time we take a step, it just reignites a spark in me." The rest of the group agreed. Alden Smith said one of the exciting things to him now is creating original work and putting it out into the world of music. Having "that blank canvas" and getting to "write my own guitar solos," he said. Ura Star & Fireball Kid Seth O'Neill, Ura Star, and Colin Ratchford, Fireball Kid, grew up in New Brunswick but have lived in Montreal for 10 years. Both make music independently but also collaborate. According to their website, the two "have always made music for good times, kitchen parties, barn burners and foggy night drives." In the video for their song Hanging Out, they are feeling the summertime vibes, hanging out and dancing on a couch in a soccer field. Ura Star's album Heartracer was created when O'Neill was dealing with chronic pain to "try to get out of that dark place I was in by creating a world of fantasy and safety and pure joy," he said. New Brunswick is central to the duo's music. "The more time I spend away from it, the more there's this mythological aspect to it," O'Neill said. "It gets kind of more and more beautiful and romantic in my mind and more and more inspiring." So far, the two have focused on the upbeat, party lifestyle but are shifting direction. They've started to let go of the "commonly accepted partying mentality," Ratchford said, referring to kitchen parties and barn burners, "and I've just been thinking and writing more about the real ramifications of that." "You can't party all the time without coming face to face with darkness." "Maybe, God forbid, we're just growing up a little bit," O'Neill said. The Kingston Collective The Kingston Collective is a group of five based in Long Reach on the Kingston Peninsula, where it has a strong following. The tight-knit group brings a lively mix of genres and styles together, blending reggae, rock, funk and pop. Joel MacPherson, Will Jones, Sam Jones, Jaden MacNeill and Miriam Westin make up the group, which has released one EP, Live in the Timber Frame. CBC talked to the band on the Jones family farm, in the barn that inspired the album title and is used as the musicians' jam space and a spot for storing tools, motorcycles and recording equipment. Photogallery | The Timber Frame Open full embed in new tab Loading external pages may require significantly more data usage than loading CBC Lite story pages. When asked about their best show, Sam Jones said, "we had a mosh pit of eight year olds at a church one time." Without hesitation, the rest of the band agreed. "To see people in the church bouncing, showing love, singing back and forth, it's what church is, it's what community is, and it's what the Kingston Collective is," MacPherson said. "So, that's definitely our best show because it represents what we're trying to grow here." When asked about the show at Area 506, MacPherson said it was a "bucket list" thing for him because he's a father of four. "Jaden's going to be eight months pregnant when we have the show so we might have a baby on the stage," Will Jones said. "It's going to be exciting," he said. "It's going to be popping." "Literally," Jaden Macneill added. The Merci-Buckets Travis Flynn, Paul Hayes and Jonathon Marino make up the Merci-Buckets. Started in 2021, it was originally a backup group for Flynn's individual musical work. Flynn works as a bartender at the Cap in Fredericton, where he also hosts a weekly open mic even tries to be as involved in the local music scene as he can. The audience and music scene make the biggest difference between great shows and events that aren't ideal. "To me, it's just feeling the community and the music scene being open and welcoming," he said. Playing at Area 506 means a lot to Flynn because he hasn't been able to even attend festival in the past. Not only will he be playing alongside friends but he'll also be performing in a lineup that includes his favourite band, Alexisonfire.
CBC
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Mi'kmaw rapper Wolf Castle launches the only Indigenous label in Atlantic Canada
As Tristan Grant closed out 2024 and took stock of the future, he kept thinking about something that was missing: an Indigenous music label in Atlantic Canada. "When I looked around, there's less than 10 Indigenous music labels in the country that are doing it at a certain level, right?" said Grant, a Mi'kmaw rapper and producer from Pabineau First Nation who performs under the name Wolf Castle. "And the thing that I think is really important is I find [as] Indigenous people and their stories and their voices are getting more and more exposure and more and more in the front-facing culture, we have to protect that and make sure that while that is happening, we still have control over that." Labels including the Ontario-based Ishkōdé Records and Red Music Rising, as well as Vancouver's Land Back Records, have been building infrastructure for Indigenous artists nationally for years, but their roots aren't on the East Coast. (Though Mi'kmaw fiddler and singer-songwriter Morgan Toney is signed to Ishkōdé Records.) As far as Grant can tell, there doesn't ever seem to have been a label of its kind on the East Coast. So the award-winning rapper, who has also hosted CBC Music's contemporary Indigenous music show Reclaimed, wants to expand the network. His answer: Castle Records, an imprint of independent Atlantic Canadian label Forward Music Group, which is home to Wolf Castle, Michael Feuerstack, Motherhood, Aquakultre, Motherhood and more. WATCH | Wolf Castle's performance at Halifax's Road to the Junos series: "I felt like, right now, on a national level, there's a lot of Indigenous music that's being made and is really good. But there's a lot of people at the emerging level and there's no infrastructure, there is not a lot of support to bring those artists to that next level of putting records out and getting that national exposure and getting that support," Grant explained. "And I've managed to carve out at least a little bit of something for myself, and I really just want to share the love and help Indigenous artists kind of go along a similar path of me, and then hopefully an even bigger and better one." With Castle Records' official launch this month comes the announcement of its first signees, Wabanaki-based collective the Hello Crows. Formed in 2022 when members Judie Acquin, Dylan Ward, Mattie Comeau and Quinn Bonnell first came together as part of a Wabanaki songwriters' circle for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, the Hello Crows released their debut single, Come Back to Me, in 2024. On May 1, they dropped their second, Warbler, to celebrate the signing and what's to come. "We have the four of us and, including Tristan, the five of us have our own individual careers that have been successful over years, but coming together, it's just another dynamic of Indigenous success in the Atlantic and Wabanaki homeland for me, anyway," Acquin explained. LISTEN | The Hello Crows' second single, Warbler: "We were in talks with other people for a record deal," said Comeau. "And basically, [Tristan's] name got brought into the chat. And it just felt like a really natural connection, you know, we trust that he's got our best interests at hand and really big fan of what he does, and how hard he works at his own career." Castle Records' current focus is the Hello Crows and championing their plans for 2025, but Grant dreams bigger. When people think of Indigenous artists in this nation, he wants them to think about the Atlantic region. "Because for me … I'm going to stay here. I'm not moving to Toronto, I'm not moving anywhere, so I'm gonna be doing my best to make sure those Atlantic artists get that national exposure and we start making connections across the full nation." And for the Hello Crows, whose coming together as a band is as much about the relationships within as it is about the music, that local support is immeasurable. "Even through adult life, there are a lot of people that look at me or see me and don't think that I'm going to be successful or they're surprised to find out that I have become a successful person through my life," explained Acquin. "And so to have somebody to believe in you, what a feeling, you know? It doesn't give you ego or anything like that. But it's just knowing that you're being supported in something that you really love to do. That's a really cool feeling." WATCH | The Hello Crows perform their debut single for CBC's East Coast Music Hour:
